3 posts in this topic

The Q/A on reddit about Esports has concluded and here's a recap of all questions Blizzard has answered about HGC 2017.

Blizzard Entertainment

With the HGC being an online league, what will happen to prominent offline leagues such as super league and gold league?

This is a hot topic among the community because of how information was originally presented. To clarify, HGC North America and Europe will be online leagues but Korea and China will have offline elements. Announcements in those regions will come at a later time.

Can we expect an official prediction league (like HotD bracket challenges) or should I start making one? :)

We've talked about this and have ideas of potentially doing it at some of the offline events but we will see... no promises! Feel free to jump in and take this one :p

Crowdfunding. It's awesome. We want more of it.

Can we expect to see more stuff that directly supports teams (or prize pools), like those sweet MVP and Tempest mounts?

We agree! The winners mount was an awesome addition to the program this year and we are actively exploring new ways to do this that involves more teams than just the winner.

In the latest episode of TownHall Heroes, Bakery suggested that instead of having Eastern and Western clash, it would be way cooler to have the clashing regions rotate, so in Spring it would be EU vs NA and the next one could be EU vs KR and NA vs CN. It would benefit the teams which could more frequently encounter teams from different regions. Is it something you considered for 2017 and is it possible that this format will be introduced in 2018 (or even phase two in 2017)?

Bakery brought this up to me as well and I loved the suggestion. We will not be changing how they work in 2017 but we will keep this in mind in the future!

Is the roster instability that plagues the NA and EU regions something on the eSports teams radar of things to attempt to stabilize? I understand that social issues amongst teams is not an easy problem to diagnose and solve (as well as some may argue it is not Blizzard's job to worry about internal team politics) but have you considered anything to incentivize teams to not think that "cutting off the arm" is the only solution if they scrape their elbow in one tournament? Roster change caps or something?

We are aware of the roster volatility that occurred this year. One of the main points we're looking to hit for 2017 is consistency and the most direct way we can do that is by being more rigid with our roster locks. For the 2017 season there will only be one period, in the middle of the year, where teams are allowed to change their rosters.

Do you plan to implement more stats easily available for esport ? And make it available to casters live so we can have a more in-depth analysis than just "Kyocha is probably the best Tracer player in the world" ?

Would be so great to know who land the most storm bolt, who deals the most damage, who stuns the most on average...

This is absolutely something we're looking to level up and are working to do so with the tools currently at our disposal. One of the best things a league provides is constant data that we can pull from to really let our players shine.

Will teams that don't make it into the top3 in their region play in any offline tournament at all next year?

Not in HGC, no.

Will there be rule changes concerning firstpick/ban or Map pick?

Yes.

Will first ban / map bans be more public in HGC 2017?

In 2016, I had no idea why the map was chosen, or how which team got first pick. I couldn't figure out if loser got first pick. Or if loser got choice of first pick or map choice. Or if there were map bans before hand? The announcers would be just be like "oh man and this map was their map pick!" like halfway through a game. And it was so confusing.

In Starcraft 2 the map bans are part of the pre-match ceremony. And it'd be nice to have more visibility in Heroes.

Yep. We will be addressing this next year and making it visible to the fans.

Is there any talk about limiting the map pool for pro teams for the whole season or parts of it?

We will be limiting the battleground pool heading into HGC 2017. The battleground pool will be set in phase 1(HGC start to Mid-Season Brawl) with the possibility of it changing for phase 2(Mid-Season Brawl to HGC Finals).

Will the limited battleground pool be in effect on public servers as well as HGC events?

It will only be for HGC.

Can you shed some more light on how the open division will work? And on how the teams from LATAM / ANZ / SEA / TW will qualify?

The Open Division will operate as a cup system with teams earning points based on their performance in each cup ultimately leading up to a playoff bracket that will decide which two teams from the Open Division will enter the Crucible. Open Division tournaments will have monetary compensation as well.

Latin America, Australia & New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan will operate as they did in the last year. Each region will have their own program that will provide teams to the Clashes, Mid-Season Brawl, and the HGC Finals.

What format will the weekly matches be in?

All League matches will be best of five.

Basically how will a typical week of HGC look for my favorite team?

Each team will play either once or twice a weekend. A typical weekend in HGC is two best of five matches a day, Friday - Sunday. For fans of HGC Europe and HGC North America there is going to be a lot to watch!

Now that HGC is going to be a formalized league. Will there be a way to watch the games in the client. Perhaps a tab with everything HGC including statistics, vods, and news?

We will have all of that information but it will be on a brand new website instead of in the client. We will continue to push HGC in the client through the Homescreen.

Will casts be in multiple languages?

We won't officially be providing multiple languages outside of what we already do but we will work with reputable community members to provide language streams if the demands are there.

Will there be something we can buy in the in game shop to show our support and fandom for our favorite HGC team?

There won't be anything at the launch but it is something we are actively working on.

Any chance of posting game replay files online so that players can study the matches and learn from the pros?

Yes, though we are still deciding what cadence we should release these.

As a semi-casual spectator, I find it somewhat difficult to find rosters and dates for upcoming matches and ongoing tournaments. Even the new overview page is so much 'what' that it is hard to find the 'when', when that is the most important part of watching anything. Am I looking in the right place? Would you agree that the current scheduling information isn't quite accessible enough yet to filthy casuals like me?

Still, I love the game, and all the hard work Blizzard is putting into it. Great job to all. Have fun at Blizzcon.

We hear you. This was one, if not the loudest, piece of feedback from our viewers and players alike. We have something pretty awesome cooking in the oven. Stay tuned!

Could we expect more international tournaments outside of those planned ? Such as nexus games or Braxis Holdout/Warhead Junction showmatches. Can we expect more community events such as Bloodlust, do you guys contribute to these events or are they only community managed if that makes sense ?

One of the biggest pieces of feedback that we received from community tournament organizers was that it was very hard to organize a Heroes tournament because how scheduling was handled this year. We will be putting out the complete 2017 HGC schedule in January which will allow organizers the visibility needed to run Heroes events.

Off-season - what are the plans in 2017 for an off-season where players / teams can recharge, make roster changes, take time off / holidays etc.

You never miss a sport more than during the off-season when there are no games going on and you get excited anticipating the start of a season.

Completely agree on the excitement an off-season brings. The official off-season of HGC is November(after BlizzCon) to late January.

This year, summer and fall, european championship were thursday and friday, do you change european schedule for 2017 to have competition for weekends?

HGC League play will target Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Do you have any more details on the Open Division? Like when will the games be played and where to catch them?

There will be an official Open Division announcement later this year with all the details you are looking for.

What rules will you have in places regarding region lock? Is it still the 6 month residency prior to competition?

Our region lock rule for players is that they must reside inside the region that they wish to play in for at least 6 months prior to the day they are going to compete.

Is there a possibilty that teams in less important regions be able to participate on the league if the other teams don't perform well? Eg: Burning rage being able to participate in the NA league

There is not. There is no way to do this fairly with region residency requirements.

Be great to see national teams playing each other in EU, e.g. a Euro championship with teams from wales, England, France etc, any chance of this happening?

We have no plans on doing this right now for Heroes. Our Overwatch team is doing just this at BlizzCon with their World Cup tournament and its awesome. Go Seagull and USA!!!

Do you think the Open Division will supplant things like Chair League and Heroes Lounge? Or is the target player pool really only teams with professional aspirations, and not just "anyone who wants to play in a league"?

I believe the Open Division will supplement these community tournaments, not take away from them.

What was the overall idea to reduce global events from 3 to 2 (with global events I mean western vs eastern aka how BlizzCon and the mid season brawl would be).

Until this Friday(AA vs Dig), the number 1 ranked teams in North America and Europe have never faced off against each other even though we've had three Global Championships. The Clashes are designed to promote regional rivalries and we believe the benefits of this outweighs losing one global event.

As someone that is involved in heroes in his own way. Will replays of these events be publicly available? If so are you still planning to use hotslogs or will you create your own database were we can download these?

We will be releasing the replays but the rate of release and location are still being worked out.

You talked about compensations for the open division, is there any more info you can share, is it like top 8 gets prize money and are there any plans to show these matches too?

We will be releasing a full Open Division announcement later this year.

What are you most excited to see resulting from all the changes to the format?

Personally, I love the roster locks and ideas of more team presence in the game. Having that confident figure to root for will be great!

I want to see some superstars. Leagues offer consistent play for competitors that really lets them test their skills against others. Very excited to look at the HGC over time and see who has improved statistically!

Also, there have been a couple of times this year where I've thought, "man is one team better than this other team?" With the HGC we'll finally know!

How exactly will the compensation for teams work in the Pro Divison and will the announced minimum 100k from January to November be split evenly between Phase 1 (until May) and Phase 2 (until November)? In other words, if a team drops out in May, will it have accumulated the minimum of 50K?

You are correct. Teams will earn at least $100,000 for their participation from January-November but if they get relegated via the Crucible in June they will receive $50,000 and the new team will earn the remaining $50,000.

Are league matches Bo3 or Bo5?

Best of 5.

Is there any talk about timing patches along side International events? Since there is no tournament server, teams will obviously be challenged mid season to adjust to the drastic meta shifts which i think is a good thing and the mark of a great team, but i think this year some patches could of been held until the day after some of the offline events. Given there is so much preparation involved leading up to these big events i believe it's healthy to allow teams to show off how they can master the game in that period of time.

Side note- I'm referring to major patches only, hoping to avoid something similar to what League of Legends did when they killed the lane swap meta before Worlds. I don't think anyone did a terrible job, it seemed to be a rare occurrence and I'm happy with how 2016 went overall.

Completely understand where you are coming from on this. We have a solution in place for this and will talk about it more at a later time.

Will there be a soccer style league system in the future I.E the EPL. If you place top three in the lower league you get promoted. If you place bottom three you get demoted. I think this well help the amateur scene and help the competitive scene grow as well.

We are aiming to do something very similar to this! The Crucibles serve this purpose. The bottom two teams in the league and the two teams that place highest in the Open Division Playoffs will face off to see who gets to see who will play in the second phase of HGC.

Season 3 will begin with the release of the Ragnaros patch next week. Several changes have been made to party sizes or placement matches and new rewards were announced!
Matchmaking or placement matches are tweaked every Season. In Season 3, you won't be able to queue for Ranked in a party. You will be able to do that in Team League. Most of the changes were discussed at BlizzCon.
Blizzard Entertainment
SEASON ROLL DATES
Season 3 will begin as soon as our next patch becomes available for download in each region throughout next week. Check the season start and end dates below to make sure you’re able to dive into the rankings as soon as the season rolls.
EVENT
DATE
Season 3 Start
Week of December 12*
Season 3 End
Week of March 13*
*Exact date may vary slightly by region.
SEASON 3 UPDATES
Party Size Changes for Hero and Team League
At BlizzCon this year, we mentioned a few party size adjustments that we’d like to try during a future season of ranked play. With the start of Season 3, we’ve decided to remove parties from Hero League and allow smaller party sizes to queue for Team League as a single-season trial. Here are the exact changes we’re going to make with the start of Season 3:
Hero League
Players can no longer queue for Hero League games in parties.
Team League
Parties containing two, three, or five players can now queue for Team League matches.
All players in two and three-player parties must be ranked within a single league of one another in order to queue for Team League. This rule works just like it did in Hero League during previous seasons.
Players in full parties can queue for Team League with any mixture of league rankings.
While players will need to have access to at least 14 Heroes in order to play Team League, there are still no minimum Hero level requirements in order to queue for Team League matches.
Team League will still utilize First Come, First Serve (FCFS) during Draft Mode, which means that parties of two and three players will need to coordinate effectively when drafting their Heroes.
Players who are currently silenced or penalized for leaving games early can no longer queue for Team League for the duration of their penalties.
Once again, these changes are intended as a trial run during Season 3, and may be reverted next season if we are not happy with how they affect ranked play overall. We’d love to read your thoughts on party sizes in ranked play once you’ve had the chance to play a few matches during the new season. Head to the official Heroes forums to let us know what you think.
League Distribution Adjustments
We keep a close eye on league distribution throughout each season of ranked play, and we’d like to make a couple of changes that will improve the overall health of the league system going forward. With the start of Season 3, the population sizes of Silver and Gold leagues will be adjusted so that each will contain a similar number of players. Additionally, we’re going to reduce the population size of Diamond by half in order to help preserve some of the prestige that comes along with brawling your way into the upper leagues. We’ll continue to monitor league sizes going forward, and can make further adjustments in future seasons as needed.
Placement Matches
In addition to everything we’ve mentioned so far, there will be 10 placement matches waiting for you on the other side of the season roll that you’ll need to play through in order to receive your initial ranking. To help ensure our ranked modes have the most accurate matchmaking information possible, we’re also going to reset placements for players who have not queued for ranked in a while.
If you didn’t finish at least 15 Team League games last season, but played a substantial number of Hero League games, and your Hero League MMR is significantly different from your Team League MMR, we will use your Hero League MMR for your initial Team League placements.
Hero League will work this way as well. If you didn't finish at least 15 Hero League games, we will use your Unranked Draft MMR or Quick Match MMR for initial placements, depending on which mode you played more of during the previous season.
We also plan to once again loosen the system’s certainty level in everyone’s skill rating, so it’ll be a little easier to move up or down through the rankings during your first few matches this season.
SEASON 3 REWARDS
Players who manage to brawl their way up through the leagues during Ranked Season 3 can claim a new portrait, mount, and gold rewards for their achievements in Hero and Team League. Take a look at everything that’s up for grabs this season!
Hero League Portraits

Team League Portraits

Elemental Stag Mount

Hero League Team League
League
Rewards
League
Rewards
Bronze
500 Gold
Bronze Hero League Portrait
Bronze
500 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Bronze Team League Portrait
Silver
750 Gold
Silver Hero League Portrait
Silver
750 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Silver Team League Portrait
Gold
1000 Gold
Gold Hero League Portrait
Gold
1000 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Gold Team League Portrait
Platinum
1250 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Platinum Hero League Portrait
Platinum
1250 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Platinum Team League Portrait
Diamond
1500 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Diamond Hero League Portrait
Diamond
1500 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Diamond Team League Portrait
Master
1750 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Epic Elemental Stag Mount
Master Hero League Portrait
Master
1750 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Epic Elemental Stag Mount
Master Team League Portrait
Grand Master
2000 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Epic Elemental Stag Mount
Grand Master Hero League Portrait
Grand Master
2000 Gold
Elemental Stag Mount
Epic Elemental Stag Mount
Grand Master Team League Portrait
In addition to everything we’ve mentioned so far, there will be 10 placement matches waiting for you on the other side of the season roll that you’ll need to play through in order to receive your initial ranking. We also plan to once again loosen the system’s certainty level in everyone’s skill rating, so it’ll be a little easier to move up or down through the rankings during your first few matches this season.
Good luck and have fun during Ranked Season 3!
(Source)

After Ghost Protocol, the newest Brawl is Garden Arena, a best-of-three Arena match featuring the Garden Terror and Shamblers.
If you complete the weekly quest objective, you will earn 1,000 Gold and a new Brawl portrait.
Blizzard Entertainment
Our newest Heroes Brawl mode is Garden Arena: a best-of-three Arena match featuring the Garden Terror and its Shamblers. Gather seeds and overrun the enemies’ core with the power of nature!

RULES:
Choose from one of three randomly selected Heroes before entering the Arena. Be quick about it though, you only have 30 seconds to choose!
Everyone will begin the round at level 10 and will be asked to choose a Heroic Ability. No other talents will be available.
During each round, slay the enemy team’s Heroes and capture Seeds from the Garden Terror and its Shamblers.
The first team to gather 100 Seeds wins the round!
The first team to win two rounds will claim victory!
REWARDS:
Complete three matches of Garden Arena to earn 1,000 Gold and the following portrait:
(Source)

People have been wondering why Dustin Browder has been so silent during last month. He's stepping down as the Game Director for Heroes of the Storm moving onto a new project whereas Alan Dabiri is stepping up for Browder.
Dustin Browder went by the name "Rock" on the official forums and this is his goodbye post!
Dustin Browder
Working at Blizzard is the coolest. Our leaders support us in making the most awesome games I have ever played. We are encouraged to take the time we need to make them awesome, and then to keep improving them for years after they go live. We sometimes get exciting chances to work on other projects, too. I’m going to take one of those chances to try something new at Blizzard.

This was not an easy choice to make. I still play Heroes five nights a week, and sitting in the bullpen surrounded by this team has been the most intensely creative experience of my career. But one thing that’s making this decision easier is knowing the future of Heroes is in the right hands.

Over the last few months, I have been transitioning my responsibilities to Alan Dabiri, a 20-year Blizzard veteran and a fellow Heroes of the Storm fanatic. In fact, since StarCraft entered the Nexus in September, the Heroes team has been releasing some of our best content to date all without my daily involvement and I’ve been thoroughly blown away with what they have delivered. For those who haven’t seen him on BlizzCon panels or doing interviews, Alan has had a hand in nearly every aspect of Heroes since the beginning, both in his role as our technical director and as part of the team’s collaborative development process. Alan is also a passionate member of the community, and he’s always in touch with what’s happening on Reddit, in our forums, and wherever you’re talking about Heroes. He’s been relentlessly working to make Heroes better for years, and I’m excited that he’ll be continuing to push the game forward as game director.

The Heroes of the Storm team is one of the best game teams I have ever had the honor of serving on. I cannot believe how much work and love went into turning what started as a tiny mod into the epic experience that it has become today. And the team just continues to pour their passion, dedication, and expertise into patches, updates, and awesome new game features. 2017 is going to be a huge year for Heroes of the Storm, with new Heroes, Battlegrounds, a massive progression update, improvements to our ladder and matchmaking systems, new social systems, new Brawls, and more.

I would like to say a special “Thank You” to everyone in the Heroes community who continues to support us and challenge us to make Heroes better, including everyone who has shared feedback with us on our forums, Reddit, esports sites, and strategy sites, and anyone who has ever sent me a Tweet. You’re the best, and your dedication and passion has made being part of the Heroes community and working on this game a blast.

While my day-to-day responsibilities might take me away from working on Heroes, I can guarantee I’ll always be watching Heroes esports, cheering on Alan and the dev team, and geeking out about the game. And if you’re looking for me, you can find me playing Ranged Assassin or Support in the Nexus.

- Dustin Browder
(Source)
Alan Dabiri the new Game Director, presented some big plans for the game in the Polygon interview.
Dabiri was a strong supporter of the concept which slowly became the newly-introduced Heroes Brawl Game Mode.